The Finalists

Panacée is a choose-your-own-adventure of low risk and high reward. Chef-owner Catherine Couvet Desrosiers (Cadet, Bouillon Bilk, Hôtel Herman, Foxy) sets the pace from behind a horseshoe-shaped bar that allows 18 guests a front-row view. Beyond an arch, a handful of tables, for those who prefer privacy or have more to say. Two prix fixe menus guide the evening: three savoury courses or five including dessert, each diner choosing independently yet all served in unison. Dishes are sharply edited, waste minimal. Bleu d’Élizabeth enriches beef tartare with spelt and red pepper. Quail touches down in rhubarb sauce. La Beurasse cheese dissolves into grassy sweetness beneath cherries and almond sorbet. Panacée is autonomy within collectivism.

Inside Esquimalt’s turreted Rosemead house, a 1906 mansion straight out of Clue, Janevca is full-fledged dandyism. Founder Lenny Moy restored the English Inn into a velvet-and-timber reverie, with antiques collected abroad: Savoy Hotel dishware, the Buckingham Palace gates from The Crown. The leaves of the dining room’s replica Japanese maple change seasonally. A Douglas fir from the grounds was milled into tables, now arranged to reconstruct its silhouette. Fire defines chef Andrea Alridge’s cooking, her Filipino and Jamaican heritage voiced in family-style dishes. Charcoal-oil Castelvetrano olives and Hokkaido scallop crudo with pyanggang sauce lead to Haida Gwaii halibut. Pastry chef Brian Bradley’s Peach Melba is a trompe l’oeil—mousse for the fruit and chocolate for the pit. At Janevca, everything feels possible.

ELEM sprawls across 3,000 square feet, divided into zones of water, air, wood, and fire. The kitchen beams in copper, facing a bar more laboratory than watering hole, its shelves lined with tinctures, syrups, and ferments. Designed by Marko Simcic, the space reflects the ethos of co-owners Chef Vish Mayekar (Pepino’s, Elio Volpe), Winnie Sun, and Hassib Sawari, who minimize their environmental impact through craft. Sun alchemises trims into elemental cocktails, from clarified water drinks to the Earth-bound Chef’s Negroni with sous-vide gin and chocolate. Mayekar’s borderless menu evolves continuously. One rarity: confit lamb belly, unchanged since opening. Grilled with a spiced Medjool date, it’s plated with ginger labneh, pickled radish and puffed buckwheat. ELEM challenges conventions, balancing sustainability with pleasure.

On Ossington Avenue, Linny’s is a love letter wrapped in butcher paper. From Big Hug Hospitality and Harlo Entertainment, the teams behind MIMI and Sunny’s, David Schwartz and Brandon Marek turn to a personal project: a mid-century steakhouse refracted through Jewish deli culture, named for Schwartz’s mother, Linda. Or Linny, if you knew her. Designer Jack Lipson, of IPSO Studio, sets the tone with corduroy booths, terrazzo floors, and polished burlwood. Warm challah, with blueberry jam, on cream cheese and a bowl of house pickles, starts things off. Chicken liver pâté, shaved cured egg, and crispy onions turn up on toasted Dear Grain sourdough. Their perfected pastrami, smoked for 12 hours, is showcased hand-cut thick and thin. Dry-aged Ontario steaks gleam with pastrami-tallow butter. At the bar, Blaise Couturier pours wit into glassware, like a Borscht Milk Punch clarified with kefir or the savoury Dilly Dally. Linny’s recalls, revisits, and revels, with just enough schmaltz.

“Weekends are pretty great.” That’s GM and co-owner Robin Corbett’s answer when asked why Niwa is only open weekdays. The Powell Street space, led by Chef Darren Gee and partners Stephen Whiteside and Miki Ellis, is small but impactful, a gesture of care for staff, community, and producers. Niwa, Japanese for garden, is all blond wood, gauzy lights, and frilled curtains. Gee, with experience at Le Crocodile, Farmer’s Apprentice, and in Japan, cooks with meditative precision. Menus echo the Pacific Northwest: a rousing set of pickles; spring cabbage salad with chili crisp; braised Wagyu and scallions over koshihikari rice, and soft mochi sourdough. Sake, natural wine, cocktails with umeshu and sansho pepper are put forward to pair. Minimalist, magnetic, Niwa fosters trust.

A meal at Pasta Pooks is like stumbling upon a rock band about to get its big break. In Dinette Triple Crown’s old spot, it marks the first permanent space for Luca Labelle Vinci, Victor-Alex “Coach Vic” Petrenko, and Kai Borst, veterans of Nora Gray, Impasto, Mano Cornuto, Gia, Doubles, Maison Publique, Mon Lapin, and Menu Extra. Seating is scarce, with a half-dozen stools, or a sidewalk terrace. The dining room is where pasta is made daily. The wine list, steered by Martin Pariseau, skews natural, nerdy, and on point. The menu is short, brash, and capricious: asparagus sabayon, haricots Caesar, a Philly cheesesteak on Automne Boulangerie rolls, gnocchi, silken ravioli, and a definitive Bolognese. Come for noodles, leave with sauce on your sleeves.

Rabbit Rabbit is like a reward at the end of the day. Tucked into a heritage storefront, the room is a dream in maroon and puce, low light pooling across mosaic tile and the sweep of a bar. Owner Sydney Cooper’s wine list is a booklet of small producers bearing her own notes. She curates cocktails like a shimmering sangria, a blend of skin-contact wine, Japanese plum wine, and a splash of secrets. The food, under Chef Billy Nguyen (Pizza Coming Soon, PiDGiN) reads like bar snacks, if bar snacks had ambitions and a passport. Find Filet-o-Fish bao on the afternoon menu, lasagna layered with gochujang bolognese and miso brown butter tomato sauce at night. Clever and whimsical, Rabbit Rabbit will leave you with the impression you’ve been out somewhere and into something.

Montréal’s first racetrack stood in Mile End; Molenne now occupies its former hay depot. After years elsewhere and abroad, its team, veterans of Damas, Le Bremner, Soif, Le Serpent, Bouillon Bilk, Lacou and more, have reunited and returned with a brasserie that forgoes a reliance on the expected. Gia Bach Nguyen’s aptly-named cocktail, Mile-End with a View, is a slinky swallow of chamomile, lemon, Ubald vodka, foam and light. Miro Ramirez-Lelair’s wine list spans collector gems to weeknight pleasures. Even as dishes include Québécois standards (razor clams, tartare, steaks, and seafood towers), there’s a tempura-crusted baked potato, beneath herb salad, smoked chèvre and bottarga. Gossamer Louis Cyr cheese, black pepper and olive oil blanket the Basque cheesecake. Molenne is a new chapter from those who know the terrain.

In Montréal’s lively Villeray neighbourhood, Bona Fide fosters a spirit reminiscent of a bustling Roman square. The cozy, slender room blends Roman cool with New York-red-sauce appeal, packed with locals since opening. Behind the fervour are Luigi Minerva and Camille Laura Briand, joined by David Alfred and Renaud Bussières. Wine leads, with Italian classics and notable pulls from elsewhere. A Sbagliato gives way to Salt River’s Stellenbosch beside asparagus and morels with an œuf parfait. Doppio ravioli swaddle ricotta and mushrooms beneath golden pangrattato and lemon zest. Inspired by nearby Marché Jean-Talon, Bona Fide grows with its community, forever faithful in pasta, yet reflective of its neighbourhood.

Shirley’s feels as though it’s always belonged to the neighbourhood. The 35-seat space Chef Renée Girard named after her grandmother is cheerful, with shelves of cookbooks and a patio at the back. Dishes brim with attentiveness. Vinegar-kissed shoestring fries are paired with smoked mussel aioli. The chopped salad is a deli-lover’s delight, with sundried tomatoes, romaine, endive, and radicchio, salami, and provolone. Handmade pastas, especially the frilled campanelle, are a treat. The small grocery lets diners bring that pasta, vegetables and cheese, and Girard’s Black Market Crunch home. Grab a jar. The slurry of red pepper flakes, garlic, fried onions, and Hickory Sticks will keep you going until your inevitable return visit.

Halifax-born Chef Colin Bebbington trained at the Culinary Institute of America and brings experience from The French Laundry, Bouchon, Spiaggia, Davies and Brook, and Claridge’s. Three months in Bologna affirmed his devotion to time-honed skills and pasta. Tribute, his first home after pop-ups, is an homage to mentors. With waterfront windows and low seating, the pale tan, grey, and black palette of the room matches the wood stacked for the open fire. Onion skins flutter across coals, Luke’s Bakery bread grills tiger-striped on one side, soft on the other. Stuffed pastas are a specialty, evident in their tortelli di San Valentino with mascarpone, black olives, and basil. The PEI bistecca is in high demand. Their desserts are approachable, sentimental. Bebbington honours and advances the legacy of those who taught him.

Baby Baby is a scene. The cocktails are events unto themselves: a brown butter Old Fashioned, sparkling Lambrusco, and Amaretto slushies. Fireside Design turned a long-empty Osborne Street building into a room of woodwork and hot-pink whimsy, the backdrop for eclectic food that stands up to the setting. Chubby, curried lobster rolls have the crunch of kohlrabi; pickerel beignets are offset by fermented plum and rhubarb and aji amarillo; and chicken becomes a DIY wrap with peanut sambal and green chili mayo. In an era of sharing plates, Baby Baby’s might be some of the most vivacious.

The butter-yellow façade and terracotta roof belong on a seaside, yet Selene shines in Hastings-Sunrise. An olive tree shades the pale dining room where accents of pine native to the Aegean and lyrical frescos meander across the walls, warming quartz and concrete. Chefs Arish Dastoor and Adrian Nate weave inspirations from Greece to Turkey. The babaganoush has the resinous edge of maple tahini and a slick of baharat chili crunch, while the tirokafteri sports fermented chilies, walnuts and honey. Both come with billowy za’atar-dusted pitas. Peeled, jewel-like tomatoes are plumped in mint-basil syrup in their horiatiki. The bavette lolls in Turkish ezme. In Rain City, Selene is outright sunshine.

June, Cambie’s brasserie and cocktail hotspot, arrived with self-assured ease. From the Keefer Bar team, and designed by Héctor Esrawe, it trades BC minimalism for terracotta hues, sculptural wood, and a bar that seems to know more about your night than you do. Downstairs, Lala is moody, in 70s burnished olive velvet, a heady mix of a Tokyo vinyl lounge and a Parisian den. Chef Connor Sperling makes French food lively: spiced madeleines accompany crab dip; sauce au poivre clings to textbook steak frites. The indulgent “Pasta for Rachel” is a single, quilted sheet folded over Comté potatoes, anointed by beurre d’Isigny, from Normandy. Drinks are equally stylish, from mini martinis to a take on a Paper Plane. You’ll stay longer than you meant to, order one more round, and think of three friends to join you next time before your night is done.

Olia is a tender-hearted looker with a lightness that keeps you curious. Brought to you by Allen Anderl and Chef Daniel Costa, Olia’s digs in the Citizen building, form a constellation with Mimi, his nocturnal cocktail bar, and Va Caffè, its daytime counterpart. Soaring windows lend the feeling of dining al fresco. Cocktails are canonical, wines purely Italian. The Don Vito starts with a Godfather—Amaretto and whiskey—and builds upon it with Hennessy, Averna, Limoncello, and oak bitters. To the delight of loyalists, some favourites of Costa’s former Uccellino found a new home—cloudlike whipped ricotta, charred cabbage with Ligurian walnut pesto. New fans abound with Olia’s leek and truffle arancini tanned like a week in Positano, saba-stained culatello, and panna cotta with cherries kissed by honey grappa.

After Tony Migliarese’s beloved D.O.P. closed due to a real estate development application on the site, he decided to gift Calgary with two new rooms: DOPO and Bar Rocca. DOPO, the swishy Tuscan taverna downstairs, dazzles with cocktails that would suit the Amalfi Coast, a wine list of treasures, bodacious meatballs, and kicky veg from pickled tomatoes to asparagus with Bolzano sauce. Upstairs, Rocca buzzes. It’s made for catching up with friends over hours and nibbles of salumi. It has the tomatoes, now blitzed into aioli to dress gnocco fritto, draped with mortadella, Calabrian chili honey, and parm. The Carbonara devilled eggs deliver on the promise of the name, the egg yolk mousse punctuated by crisp guanciale. Mama Rose’s phone number is on the menu beside the tiramisu. Once you’ve tried her Platonic ideal, barely sweet, finely bitter, and speckled by flaky salt, she’ll be on speed dial.

It could be mistaken for a gallery; only an ultramarine noren beside the lit tokonoma marking Chef Vincent Gee’s presence. His Toronto sushiya closed with a pledge to relocate, a promise now kept with partner Julian Doan. Eight seats line one side of a Canadian ash counter, ceramics spanning 5,000 years displayed on the other. Gee, with two decades of experience in Canada and Japan, serves an omakase of over 20 courses, embedded in Edomae style. All fish are wild-caught. The rice is naturally grown in Shiga Prefecture, and is seasoned only with Iio Jozo vinegar and salt. Suzuki is aged for perfection. Nori pleats around binchōtan-grilled tairagai. The sushi is uncompromising, once-in-a-lifetime quality. Still, Gee’s attention may be the greatest luxury of all.

Jen Agg’s latest restaurant has what you want, no matter the time of day. The handsome emerald-green main floor gives way to an 80s-inspired mezzanine, another example of Agg’s uncommon knack for design. From Executive Chef James Santon, the menu straddles steakhouse, pub, and modern influences. Black pudding with fried eggs to start the day. Mini Yorkshire puddings for the caviar service. Lamb tartare gets curry mayo and poppadoms. Surf and Turf means lobster and sweetbreads adorned in a slurpable pastis beurre monté. Snag one of the 21, $21 ‘thick-boy’ burgers at Happy Hour and couple it with one of David Greig’s cocktails like the 2-oz Shotgun Martini, a shivering wonder that glistens in a Lilliputian tumbler. Wine director Jake Skakun curates a selection that plays well across the menu. Whatever the hour, General Public is ready for you.

Behind an understated door in downtown Burlington, Michelin-trained chefs Stephen Baidacoff and Nick Lin unfold a quietly confident experience. Guests step almost into the kitchen before choosing between a moody lounge or an airy upstairs perch. Plates are distinctive: Treviso radicchio with ajo blanco and figs; beef tartare flickering with flavours of Tom Yum; and white asparagus basking in an Appenzeller cheese espuma. Ribeye from a Guelph co-op arrives with verdant fava bean hummus. Dessert places hosigaki against mango, sake granita, and black tea meringue in an unanticipated composition. With Depeche Mode in the background, No. 8 whispers sophistication and is a secret too good not to share.

Everyone is at La Lune. On a midweek night the main floor is packed, private rooms below booked and busy. Inspired by Québécois rotisseries, birds blistering and fat slowly rendering, the latest from Mon Lapin’s team is already beloved. A carved owl guards the wooden door, Atelier Zébulon Perron’s space is radiant in tawny wood, half-moon sconces, and a glittering bar. Through a kitchen porthole, glimpse dry-cured chickens from family-run farms. Offered whole or half, alongside hand-cut fries and a gravy that takes three days to make. The croqu’ailes (deboned, stuffed, fried wings) are legendary. Duck, guinea fowl, and ribs make appearances. Wines orbit Beaujolais to Quebec, and the cocktails impress, including bartender Simon Lemay’s Bloody, a lucent take on the brunch classic. La Lune is family-friendly, feather-to-table, or a culinary moon-landing in Petite-Italie.

At Rabble, owner Jynnifer Gibson and Chef Todd Perrin build a laid-back, vibrant dining room filled with wit and warmth. Exploded florals, mismatched plates, squishy pillows, and plant-lined windows set a relaxed tone. Chalkboard specials complement the à la carte and three-course chef’s-choice menus. Cocktails hit hard, like the Caribbean Whip, effectively an Orange Julius in its final, boozy, brilliant form. Fried oyster mushrooms would have Colonel Sanders jealous of their crunch. Beautifully seared trout—its skin shatters like glass—rests atop a salad of olives, oranges, and mint. Merasheen oysters moor the coastal connection. Despite its breezy confidence, Rabble is absolutely without airs. And that, of course, is exactly the point.

At the corner of Clark and Mozart, Limbo is informal but not unserious. Harrison Shewchuk, Jack Zeppetelli, and Cédric Larocque create a place with oxblood banquettes and flattering light, where the conviviality of a crowded room and excellent food meet seamlessly. Elo Lavallée Davis’ cocktails are eccentric and selective; the Slush Kalimotxo, a half-frozen blend of red wine and cola with a morello cherry on top, is already signature. Dishes find an equilibrium of artistry and aplomb: tuna on sizzling panisse; Pont Blanc cheese with strawberries and radishes; lamb flank edged by anchovies, broccoli lending cruciferous strength. Wines curated by Henri Murray and Claudia Richard skew natural and zero-zero. Tamara Gaulton’s île flottante and mille-feuille stop the show. It’s a neighbourhood hang and a capital-R Restaurant, all at once, and without compromise.

Without a sign outside, the clutch of eager diners confirms this is the place to be. A lantern rests on the sidewalk, and behind the curtain, Sumibiyaki Arashi exceeds expectations. Studio Roslyn’s serene space calms with lime-washed walls and dried branches, yet hip hop rebounds, and sake is shared with chef-owner Peter Ho. His command of Japanese cuisine, shaped at Torishiki and RyuGin, finds focus in binchōtan grilling. The omakase unfolds: shima aji cleaved to reveal fire-touched skin, then skewers of chicken breast, thigh, heart, drumette, and the standout knee (cartilage removed). Between, daikon with soy, Wagyu-cloaked eggs, tofu, chawanmushi, chicken paitan, soboro don. A flurry as fast as Ho fans the flames. Keep up.

At Yan Dining Room, housed inside Hong Shing, Chef Eva Chin tells stories through stock, vegetables, and memory. Born in Hawai‘i to parents of Chinese, Samoan, and Singaporean ancestry, she calls her cuisine “neo-Chinese,” shaped by care over concept. The dimly lit room is a threshold, the meal as immersive as it is nourishment. A gong sounds, and Chin frames each course with warmth and intention. Menus oscillate with the seasons, always beginning with broth. Quail and morels on our visit. Plates draw from the past brought to the present: drunken oysters from her father, shredded potato salad from her mother, liangban cucumbers from her grandfather. Dandan dumplings and char siu duck follow, ending with a Pacific Northwest version of campfire s’mores. In the shadow of her past, Chin coaxes her new future to light.

Nero Tondo might be the next big thing. Chef-owners, Lucas Johnston and Devon Latte (Acorn alumni), embrace “full use,” a shift that fuels abundant creativity. Producers are praised on every plate, meat is only occasional and always conscientiously sourced, and the room, 18 seats outlining an open kitchen, thrums with banter. Wines are poured with pride. Menus flow in waves: tomatoes with housemade ricotta and Buddha’s Hand vinaigrette; whey caramel clinging to radishes with porcini miso ice cream; pan-roasted Warba potatoes with lovage oil and black garlic vinaigrette. Spot prawn heads replace anchovy in a Caesar, and honey gelato with hazelnut croccante excites. We leave exhilarated, having emerged from Nero Tondo’s deep and delicious stream of consciousness.

A Pickletini. Start there. Gin, cornichon brine, celery, dill—salty, bracing, elegant. Like everything at Maven, Chef Shauna Godfrey’s first restaurant on Harbord, it carries both reminiscence and revelation. Inspired by her bubbe Rose, Godfrey gathers Polish-Jewish roots into heartfelt cooking in a sunlit room of wood, primary colours, and family knickknacks. In their midst, Godfrey brings legacy to life. Skewered salami buckles and gleams with Kozlick’s mustard and apricot; brined chicken schnitzel is thick, bronze, and paired with plum compote and brown butter. Green Goddess slicks cucumber in the Seder plate salad. Mensch sauce crowns crispy potatoes. The coleslaw and cheesecake are Rose’s; the former appears unbidden and is refilled wordlessly, the latter is sublime, supple, and tangy. She called Godfrey “Maven,” Yiddish for “expert” as an endearment. Godfrey returns the title to her grandmother, and it’s evident why.

Mystic angles towards the harbour, clad in Muntz metal the colour of oxidized coins. It resembles a fragment washed ashore, beneath a kinetic sculpture illuminated in time with the tide. Inside, the room curves like a schooner’s hull, the kitchen lighthouse-golden. Chef Malcolm Campbell creates a cuisine hewn by climate and geography, unbound by convention. Fauna and Biota menus move across land and sea: monkfish with potato pearls and pine emulsion, haskap with wintergreen and gooseberry. The blind Discovery Menu shifts like weather. Scallop tartare with caviar rests in sea buckthorn aguachile, wolf eel is rich as butter. Desserts surprise. Wines extend the journey. The service is deftly choreographed and genuinely warm. Mystic is a manifesto, seasoned by salted air.

At Sushi Hyun, a contemplative hallway leads to a centuries-old Hinoki counter. Even as beauty is striking, the welcome is warm, the ritual of omakase softening into something like a kitchen party. Chef-owner Jy Hyun Lee shares details with appreciative pride, from Shizuoka wasabi to tuna sourced through revered merchant Yamauki. Dinner begins with quivering chawanmushi and red sea bream sashimi with shiso, slow-cooked octopus, kinmedai, and tuna so soft it borders on indecent. Skewered barramundi with leeks offers pause, before uni, anago, and goldeneye snapper over prized rice transformed into ochazuke. A morsel of tamago, then melon and strawberry ice cream. Playful, personal and profound, Sushi Hyun is utterly joyous.

An evening at aKin is a sequence of deliberately calibrated moments, part science, part storytelling, and altogether its own. Eric Chong’s fine dining and exclusively presented blind tasting menu doesn’t fuse cuisines; it stretches them. Downstairs, cocktails are full of story, from a Negroni drawn deep and savoury to a Happy Hour capped with beer foam. Upstairs, Chong’s menu is ever changing. When he reworked dim sum, wu gok hid wagyu in a lacy taro shell; lo bak go became a cone to hold dried shrimp sabayon, lap cheung and daikon; the char siu was slow-cooked Iberico secreto. A prawn meatball encased a crab claw beside curry-leaf-streaked laksa, followed by Typhoon Shelter fried rice with Dungeness crab. Dessert arrived disguised as a doll’s teapot. aKin transforms tradition into wonder.

At the corner of rue Marquette and Gilford, Le Violon hums in its own key. Chefs Danny Smiles, Mitch Laughren, and wine director Andrew Park unite with creative director and artist Dan Climan. A crew with chemistry, history, and no fuss. The dining room, designed by Climan and Atelier Zébulon Perron, is streamlined glamour: sunlight through half-frosted glass, curved banquettes, satiny greyed blue-green paneling. Table linens are perforated for slender vases; a soigné, slightly obsessive detail. The menu is tight, local but travelled. Their beef tartare is a cover of kibbeh nayyeh—hand-chopped, bulgur-flecked, topped with Birri tomatoes, and tahini. Desserts are unskippable. An ovation would be understandable.

Scenes at Claire Jacques unfold like unhurried visits with friends. Chef Laurence Théberge cooks, Philippe Guilbault does everything else, from cocktails and wine to service. Together, they create a small-plates wine bar that is freer, and feels more companionable. You drop by for gougères and a glass of wine, and stay for dinner. The single-page menu ends with a note of thanks. The low-lit room, about 25 seats, is pleasingly cluttered. Guilbault, formerly of Mastard and Hélicoptère, mixes cocktails like the sea buckthorn Aurella, while his wine list leans natural and well-priced. Théberge, who learned hospitality from her grandparents, Claire and Jacques, refined her skills at Patrice Pâtissier. She surely knows how good her chicken liver mousse is, bejewelled with a seasonal gelée, blackcurrant during our visit. A salad of strawberries and tomatoes is a BLT made better. Each dish cultivates slow eating in between conversations. Order it all.